#imane bakhellal

Skam France Season 4 earns a solid 4 out of 5 stars. It’s not perfect, but it’s thoughtful, tender, and quietly revolutionary in the way it centres a character who’s so often pushed to the margins.

This is Imane’s season. If you know the Skamverse, you know each season zooms in on one character’s emotional arc and this time, it’s Imane Bakhellal, a French Muslim teenager navigating faith, friendship, and first love. And honestly? It’s the kind of season that makes you pause mid-episode just to sit with the weight of what’s been said. It doesn’t shout, it resonates.

Imane is a revelation. After seasons of being the wise friend in the background, she finally gets the narrative space she deserves. Her story of balancing religious beliefs with personal autonomy, reconnecting with Sofiane (her brother’s friend), and figuring out where she fits is handled with a rare sensitivity. It’s not preachy. It’s not tokenistic. It’s just honest. She’s allowed to be messy, funny, thoughtful, and deeply human. And the Eid episode? Easily one of the most emotionally satisfying finales in the entire Skam universe.

Visually, the show sticks to its signature realism. Warm lighting, natural pacing, music that sneaks up on you and wrecks you quietly. There’s a scene where Imane sits alone, scrolling through messages, and the stillness of it hits like a gut punch. It’s the kind of show that trusts you to sit with silence, and that trust pays off.

That said, not everything lands. Some side characters, especially Daphné and Alexia feel underused. They orbit Imane’s story without much of their own momentum. Sofiane, while compelling, occasionally tips into melodrama. And there’s a subplot involving a party and a friendzone dynamic that feels like it wandered in from another season. It doesn’t ruin anything, but it does blur the emotional focus.

What really elevates this season is its cultural specificity. It doesn’t try to explain Islam, it just shows Imane living it, questioning it, loving it. Her home life, her relationship with her parents, the tension between tradition and teenage rebellion, it’s all there, and it’s all handled with care. It’s rooted in a particular experience, but still feels universally relatable.

a hint of what is to come in my season 11 wrap-up post... if we're going to discuss rym, we have to address everything that came first. so yes, that means yann, imane, aurelien, bilal, maya -- i'm excited to dive in, and i hope you find this little excerpt intriguing! more to come after finals, but i have started drafting it.

we go throughout the season watching sofiane be vocal and transparent about his interest in imane. feelings to which she doesn’t respond to and instead lies to her friends, esp manon, about not being obviously interested in sofiane. constantly withholding the truth gets her caught up in a web of lies and although she learns to be honest, a bulk of the conflict in this season is wrapped up in imane being extremely avoidant and reactive. i remember when i first watched this 3 years ago i was like poor imane nobody understands 😢😢 but now it’s so frustrating..

i also think the way they portrayed sofiane getting with manon as a rebound girl after imane’s rejection makes his intentions seem insincere. he could’ve hooked up with some mystery girl but chose to go for her best friend manon?! real fuccboi behaviour. although, i understand we couldn’t ask him to wait around for imane while she was unresponsive, a terrible communicator, and ghosted him out of fear. she was being hot-cold all while he was earnestly attempting to be on her good side. all that talk of "how many kids do you want?" went null as soon as he decided to casually date her friend rather than sort out his own feelings.